On page 4A of the November 25, 1997 edition of the Grants Pass Daily Courier, Dennis Roler's editorial, entitled "Welfare-to-work program still a work in progress", explains that there aren't enough jobs available to employ the people now on welfare and on whom the state is spending millions of dollars to make employable.

Roler notes the recent discovery that there are not enough jobs available for all welfare recipients in the areas in which they live, and predicts that, "...at some point, even moving people around won't work, because there simply aren't enough jobs to go around." Both this discovery and the truth of his prediction have, or at least should have, been evident from the beginning to anyone who gave the matter more than a few moments thought. Roler correctly foresees that "The situation will get even worse if the present economic boom fades." I might add that it will "get even worse" whether or not the present economic boom fades, because of increased productivity resulting from automation and because of global competition. So far, Roler and I are in complete accord.

Our views diverge, however, with his suggestion that, instead of taking paying jobs (of which there aren't enough to go around) those on welfare should "work for their welfare benefits", perhaps by doing "...community service that is now performed by volunteers." Implicit in this suggestion are three assumptions, namely:

• It is somehow more virtuous than not for welfare recipients to perform labor that they may find distasteful.
• Volunteers would be pleased to be relieved of their community service work by welfare recipients.
• Welfare recipients will do as good a job at their assigned community service work as dedicated volunteers are doing now.

My guess is that the first of these assumptions, i.e., it is somehow "righter" for welfare recipients to work than not, is mostly an emotional residual of our Puritan heritage. Four hundred and fifty years ago this was probably a valid assumption. In the present, when all the goods and services consumed by all of our citizens are being produced by a small fraction of the working-age population, this is no longer the case. You can read more about this subject here.

I am convinced that the second assumption, i.e., that volunteers would prefer not to be doing their volunteer work, is not correct. While I have conducted no formal surveys on this matter, I have discussed it with many volunteers. The great majority have indicated that they like and derive satisfaction from the volunteer work they are doing, which is, in many cases and not surprisingly, why they are doing it.

The third assumption, that welfare conscripts will perform the community service work now being undertaken by volunteers as well as those volunteers are doing it, is unfounded and, on the face of it, invalid.

So, if we follow the suggestion that Roler has offered, here's what we'll end up with:

• Welfare recipients doing work that they have not chosen to do, from which they will, therefore, derive relatively little satisfaction, and into which they will therefore put relatively little effort;
• volunteers, most of whom had derived great satisfaction from, and put their best efforts into, their voluntary labors, being "laid off" in favor of welfare recipients; and
• community services that are not being performed as well as they previously had been.

In other words, we can expect to reduce both the quantity and quality of the work now being performed by volunteers, while at the same time producing two large groups of people (current volunteers and current welfare recipients) both of whom will perceive themselves to be worse off than they are now. All without saving taxpayers a nickel. A lose-lose-lose proposition.

Is it good to force welfare recipients to perform community service, thereby at once disadvantaging our devoted volunteers and reducing the quality and quantity of work that they are presently performing? I think not. If we focus our attention on reducing costs while concurrently improving the quality of life not only of volunteers and welfare recipients, but the rest of us as well, we will be more likely to develop creative solutions that achieve these ends. If we focus our attention, instead, on solving "the welfare problem", we will continue to develop short-sighted quick-fixes like the "welfare to work" program that is already proving unworkable.